You are invited to a Jewish Sermon on the Mount

This last week has been extremely busy for me, so I’ve not had the time to develop a decent post - but I’ll do the best I can for now. First is a correction to my last post of the books I’ve been reading. Benny Morris is the author of 1948. I intend to bring my bookshelf up to date soon as well. I want to do some more comparisons with the LCMS, but only to the extent that it sheds light on how the rest of Protestantism was affected negatively with regards to the ambivalence to the Jewish background of the faith. And then I’d like to get back to my outline for Unpacking Luther’s Baggage.

My usual weekly Torah Club meeting tomorrow night (June 28th at 7:00 pm) at Mars Hill in Grandville, Michigan is being preempted by a special guest: Michael Boaz, who is the founder of First Fruits of Zion, which created the Torah Club materials! He is coming to give a preview of their new series called A Jewish Sermon on the Mount. Here is a quote from their poster:

Learn the words of Jewish from a Messianic persepcetive. “A Jewish Sermon on the Mount: Exploring the Core Teachings of Jesus form a Hebraic Perspective” introduces the Hebrew idioms, Jewish contexts, and rabbinic methods at work in Jesus’ most famous sermon. Jewish Sermon on the Mount provides a brief introduction to Matthew 5-7 using a new, Hebrew based translation that allows English readers to see the Hebraisms of the Master’s teaching and the richness of the Hebrew words. 

Enjoy and challenging and inspiring look at Jesus’ teachings and the transformative message of the Sermon on the Mount.

• See Jewish parallels to Gospel texts and find out why Bible scholars believe the parallels are important for greater understanding
• Discover Hebrew words that are impossible to translate into English and how translators deal with these difficult words. See the words - understand the concepts they represent and expand your understanding of the Bible.
• Hear the compelling story and see the New Testament translation of Franz Delitsch, a nineteenth century Christian Bible-translator considered one of the greatest lights of Messiah to the Jewish people

Learn and see what was so distinctive to Jesus’ teaching in this passage that produced such as response, “the crowd was amazed at his teaching, for he was teaching them as a man of authority, and not like the soferim (scribes)” (Matthew 7:28-29)

This teaching normally takes three 2.5 hour sessions, so tomorrow night will be an overview with a few highlights. I’ll take copious notes and will post them on this blog as soon as possible. BTW, the meeting is in room 403 at Mars Hill.